SLLP Project Development Pro Forma Name of Project 6. Enhancing Nature Reserves: Supporting Local Groups Managing heathland without grazing or burning Sponsoring partner Sheffield Lakeland Landscape Partnership organisation & main contact 150 w ord summary @he Sheffield Lakeland Landscape Partnership vision and ob©ectives are around connecting with the landscape and engaging with those that live within it. @here are a range of activities being led by the partnership and a great deal of delivery will be via partnership managed sites or agreed third party action. @here are a number of groups active in the area who manage sites for natural heritage and community involvement. It is important that we have involved these groups in our ©oined up thinking and can continue to involve them as they come forward. Full pro©ect description Pro©ects with separate descriptions 6a. Wadsley and Loxley Common £14,880 Separate narrative 6b. St Nicholas’s Church £9,500 Separate narrative 6c. South Yorkshire Bat Group £15,000 Separate narrative 6d. Bowcroft Cemetary £5,000 Separate narrative 6e, Rivelin Corn Mill £20,000 Separate narrative How does the project contribute to our v ision ? “A wilder, more natural and resilient landscape of native clough woodland, descending down from the moorland slopes to the reservoirs, streams and farmlands below, alive to the sound of curlews and lapwings, and crossed by a lattice work of drystone walls and accessible paths and bye-ways. A landscape that provides clean air and water, supports wildlife, helps to reduce flooding and improves peoples’ health & wellbeing. A landscape for everyone to value, enjoy, understand – and feel part of. Our vision is inclusive, as well as working as a partnership the Sheffield Lakelands pro©ect will include a community grant scheme so that others can become part of the pro©ect throughout the programme. In addition this pro©ect allows smaller groups, or groups with narrow geographic range to take part in the partnership from the outset. Helping us help others to value, en©oy and understand the landscape. SLLP Project Development Pro Forma Name of Project Enhancing Nature Reserves: Supporting Local Groups – Wadsley and Loxley Commoners, Sometimes a little help can get you a long way, SRWT volunteers creating new access routes at Wyming Brook. Sponsoring partner SLLP Volunteer Coordinator and Coms Officer supporting organisation & a local group main contact Wadsley and Loxley Commoners (WALC) recipients rather than project designers. 150 word summary Wadsley and Loxley Common lies just on the edge of Wadsley and is a local gateway to the Lakelands. The important heathland habitats are maintained by volunteers and the area is enjoyed by hundreds of local people. This project is a range of community engagement events, such as bioblitz, capacity building for existing and new groups, particularly around ecological training and direct support for important habitat management. Full project description Wadsley Common and the adjoining Loxley Common is a piece of land owned and held in trust by Sheffield City Council which is a public open space used as an area of recreation and exercise by the general public. The two commons combined cover 100 acres (0.40 km2) and is an area of heather, oak, silver birch, bracken and grassland which was declared a local nature reserve in 1999. The W&L Common is designated as access land under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 To the north of the common is Hillsborough golf club, which was laid out in 1920. For a period of 130 years from 1784 the common was in private hands and was an area of mining and quarrying, with coal and ganister being mined and sandstone quarried for building. There were two drift mines on the common, the Bower mine and the Top mine. The Bower mine was owned by the Oughtibridge Silica Firebrick Company and operated between 1890 and 1940 while the Top mine probably ceased production in 1943. In 1913 the common was given to the council by the descendents of the Payne family, who gave "seventy five acres of land at Loxley Common and Wadsley Common to be used by the public for the purpose of exercise and recreation, and to be known as Loxley Chase". A further twenty five acres belonging to other landowners were subsequently included in the W&L Common. The Common is managed by The Parks and Countryside Service who work for Sheffield City Council. The management plan was drawn up in consultation with local land owners, members of the public, representatives from the Wadsley and Loxley Commoners and local ecologists. The overall broad aim of the plan is: "To maintain and enhance the Commons as a wildlife, landscape, historical and recreational resource for the enjoyment of the local community and visitors alike." While the City Council have overall management responsibility for the site, the Wadey and Loxley Commoners (WALC) are a local conservation group, not legal commoners, who aim to conserve the area of lowland heath and to help others understand the importance of lowland heath in the area and the cultural heritage which created the common in the first place. The WALC undertake a range of routine management with a particular emphasis on continued and on-going removal of invasive scrub oak and birch from the remaining heath, and management of that heath to restore heather and bilberry cover. In the recent past there was a conflict within the community between those who were working to maintain habitats and those who felt the work was intrusive. Management has not kept pace with spread of scrub and the WALC group has achieved less than it would have wished. The Sheffield Lakeland Landscape Partnership Project is an opportunity to re-ignite interest in this site, to involve and educate the community and raise the profile of WALC in order to get new members and new local volunteers. WALC aim to work carefully with site users and the local community over the next few years to achieve this. Bioblitz, Citizen Science and Interpretation Understanding the importance of the site for wildlife is a key element of engaging the community in the management needed. In order to do this WALC would like to work with the Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust (or a suitable ecological consultant) to run a suite of projects to better understand what we have, engage people with the site and train up a number of local people in habitat and species monitoring to inform future management. WALC will need more members, more information and more knowledge in order to do this. Our engagement project will include: A spring Bioblitz event WALC will launch our engagement programme with a Bioblitz family event. Throughout the first year we will carry out a range of engagement and training events, including: Spring and autumn bird surveys Heathland invertebrate surveys Habitat survey techniques Fungi walks Plant identification events Mammal Survey * Note that bat survey events will be carried out under a separate project. The first year’s activity will engage the community, identify new volunteers and give is some baseline- information upon which we can create a long-term citizen science project. Citizen Science a bespoke project In the 2nd year we will engage an ecologist to work with existing and new volunteers to create a monitoring programme and to train those volunteers in suitable techniques to undertake routine monitoring and recording. This will help drive our management prescriptions and continue to emphasise the importance of ongoing management. Routine heathland management In addition to our engagement programme WALC want to better manage the heathland plots and Loxley Edge. Key pieces of work include: Invasive birch and oak At present there is limited invasive birch cutting followed by herbicide treatment of regrowth by Sheffield City Council staff, we aim to explore mechanical birch pulling using levers for the smaller trees and glyphosate capsule injection for the larger rooted trees. Larger trees could be chipped on site with chipping being used to improve walking routes. Some of this work is urgent. Continuing tree growth and Heather loss will make heathland rescue less viable as time goes on. Bracken control With the loss of Asulox spraying by the City Council, bracken is becoming a worse problem. WALC is looking to create a simple ‘bashing’ regime as part of a Wadsley and Loxley Common ongoing action. Heather restoration Initiate a manual turf cutting regime where enrichment has resulted in vigorous grasses replacing heather stands. The turfs to be used to create ‘Cornish banks’ which in time will become modern landscape features of management separating heathland blocks from scrub and woodland areas. Heather cutting of existing areas will generate ‘donor’ heather for strewing. In order to re-ignite this management work WALC are looking to engage a suitably skilled volunteer or contract force to action some of this this work, to bulk the existing volunteer group and help us attract new volunteers. WALC will work with the SLLP Practical Projects and Volunteer Coordinator to develop and undertake this work. While in the first year we will only manage the heathland sites by removing very small birch and continuing the existing mowing regime, but in future years we would aim to incorporate new techniques and ideas as ‘guided’ by the ecology project and in-line with increased engagement of the community and additional new volunteers. Supporting documents English Nature No11, lowland heathland management booklet version 2.0, N Michael (1996) Wadsley and Loxley Common LNR Designation records Sheffield Heathland HAP 2012 Other partners and Wildscapes to deliver bioblitz and associated ecology organisations directly projects. Or this may be delivered by contract consultants. engaged in delivering the project SLLP Practical Projects and Volunteer Coordinator to help coordinate practical programme.